Ice Rod is the Dennis Rodman of hip-hop

photo by: Nick Vlcek

​ICE ROD. If you don't know anything about him, he's the rapper persona of artist Michael Gaughan (maybe you've seen his gorgeous paintings for the Gayngs and Moonstone records), a guy who writes songs that at face value seem jokey ("Your Body Is a Sk8park"), but upon deeper listening are also really funny and maybe a little subversive. Oh, and environmentally responsible too: when he opened for Sage Francis about five years ago he and his fly girls rapped about the importance of the three R's, as dozens of paper airplanes sailed into a recycling bin.

In that spirit he brings us the "Basketball Rap" (at least that's what I'm calling it for now), heavily augmented by maybe the coolest percussive trigger setup in history.

The first video is of a home practice test, the second their sound check at this year's Soundset, and third is the performance. Love these guys.

You can see Ice Rod for yourself June 30th at Sauce Soundbar (which I hear is undergoing a rename - for my part, I think Stinky's is a great name).